Timeless tunes brought to life

Old Notes

Bangaloreans couldn’t have asked for a better weekend as Amit Kumar, son of legendary singer Kishore Kumar, revived the songs of some Bollywood greats, such as  Ashok Kumar, R D Burman, S D Burman and his very own father at Chowdiah Memorial Hall. The concert was called ‘Bollywood Chatush’.

Celebrating Dada Muni’s centenary, Amit created an atmosphere of the early Bollywood era, gathering huge applause from the music-loving audience.

People of all age groups came to enjoy the lively evening. As Amit Kumar stepped on to the stage, the crowd greeted him with whistles and plenty of applause.

He began with a few jokes and then proceeded with the song Thandi hawa yeh chandni suhani, which was one of his father’s songs.

Entertaining the audience further, Amit donned a hat, a grey overcoat, a muffler, glares and a cigarette in his left hand to match his uncle, Ashok Kumar’s looks. The audience burst into peals of laughter and appreciated his performance.

Accompanying him were none other than the Sodha Brothers — Kishore Sodha on trumpet, Raj Sodha on saxophone and English flute and their eldest brother, Rajendra Singh Sodha, playing the swaralin, a combination of violin, sarangi and dilruba.

The audience remained glued to their seats as they sunk into the melodious voice of Amit Kumar and his tribute to Dada Muni, Panchamda, Kishore Kumar and S D Burman. He further sung songs such as Tum aa gaye ho and Bach ke rehna re baba.

Dazy Fernandes, who had come for the show along with her husband, said, “I’m privileged to see Amit Kumar performing the songs of all these Bollywood legends. This is
going to be a memorable evening for us. I’m excited.”

The song list for the show was specially selected by Amit Kumar himself. In between his songs, Amit Kumar also kept the audience informed about the song and how was it made.

The drums were played by Franco Vaz, the guru of Shivmani, and one of the finest drum players in the country. He not only played for Panchamda during the recordings but also accompanied him and Asha Bhosle at all their stage shows. For Bangaloreans, the weekend would have been an amazing one.